Famished - Meghan O'Flynn (learn to read books TXT) 📗

The Hangout was a posh establishment, but the bouncer shooed Noelle and me in without asking us to pay the cover, which made me feel attractive and also a little like a prostitute flaunting her wares to save twenty bucks. The music pounded through immense speakers and strobe lights pulsed flashes of red and yellow, green and blue, in time to the music. Noelle stood on her tiptoes to scour the seating situation, then dragged me to a back-corner booth across from the bar. The vacating couple was still collecting their drinks when she clambered into the seat. I waited until they disappeared into the crowd and sat as our waitress approached.

Noelle ordered a daiquiri. I got a cranberry juice with lime.

“I better take it easy on these,” I said when the drinks were delivered. “I don’t want you to have to carry me out of here.”

Noelle laughed, but it was hard to hear her over the music. I watched her face, trying to decide if I was supposed to be making conversation as she scanned the room. I settled for working on my drink.

Within minutes, the booth began to feel like a prison. A gopher in my chest clawed at my rib cage. I pictured the rodent from Caddyshack and squinted at the subtitles on the muted television behind the bar, half expecting Jake’s face to leap onto the screen, eyes radiating disapproval. I really need to get out more.

“Hey, need some company?” Two men stood next to our table, drinks in hand. The one who spoke was blond, with chiseled features and a wide mouth. His taller, darker companion looked like he had just stepped off the cover of G.Q. His eyes were sharp like a hawk’s and ringed with aqua, the unique coloring visible even in the dim light of the club. As our eyes met, a pang of memory flittered across my mind and disappeared. My breath caught, but I could no longer remember why.

“Sure.” Noelle scooted toward me in the booth, and the blond slid in beside her. I moved to the end to avoid being squished.

“I’m Thomas,” the blond said, offering his hand. Noelle took it and smiled at him.

“I’m Jim,” said Mr. G.Q. He was watching me, presumably waiting for me to tell him my name, but my mouth was too dry to speak. When I said nothing, he parked next to Thomas.

Noelle raised her voice over the pounding music. “I’m Noelle, and this is my shy friend Hannah.”

Thomas waved, and it was so exaggerated and goofy that I almost smiled. Jim bowed his head once. “Nice to meet you, Hannah.”

I picked up my juice and put it to my lips instead of responding. Social awkwardness was a bitch. Dammit, Hannah, act normal!

Noelle glanced at me and turned back to the guys. “So, Thomas, what do you do?”

“Yoga.” Thomas’s voice was strained, speaking over the music, but it was still mellow somehow. Calm. “I also play on the jungle gym whenever possible. Buy catnip. Not for me, mind you, but that doesn’t make it less true.”

Noelle laughed. “No, for work.”

“We’re both in the automotive industry,” Thomas said, pointing to Jim. “Being in the Motor City, it was between designing cars and starting a Motown boy band. But I can’t dance.”

Noelle’s eyes were on Thomas’s face as she shifted toward him and put her hand on his arm. “Original. Most guys just go for ‘I’m a big-shot lawyer’ or ‘I’m an engineer.’”

Thomas’s smile was infectious: straight, white, genuine. “I have to play to my strengths. I’m better at creative dialogue than dancing anyway.”

Noelle laughed harder than I’d ever made her laugh, and a pang of jealousy hooked my stomach.

“Did you go to school here?” Noelle asked him.

“Yep. University of Michigan,” Thomas said.

My head throbbed in time to the music. I set my glass on the table next to Noelle’s.

As if remembering there was someone else at the table, Noelle took her hand off Thomas’s arm and sat back in the booth. “How about you, Jim? Where did you go to school?”

Jim sipped his drink and watched me like he hadn’t heard her. It was probably my overactive imagination, but it didn’t stop the niggling at the base of my skull. There was hunger in his fixed stare like he wanted to eat me alive.

“Cal Tech,” he said finally.

I turned my head and looked across the way, behind the bar, toward the television again—anywhere to avoid Jim’s eyes. The view wasn’t any better over there. On the flat screen, a spunky young newscaster feigned seriousness while, behind her, police officers walked by with a black body bag on a stretcher. It was the same shot that had been on replay for weeks as the media exploited the murders of two young women. Jane and what’s-her-name. Meredith. I winced.

“Scary stuff,” Jim said.

I turned toward him but kept my eyes on his forehead.

“Don’t worry, they’ll catch him,” he said.

“What makes you think it’s a him?” Noelle asked.

Jim’s head cocked to the side. “It always is, isn’t it?”

Noelle’s face darkened so briefly that I thought I

imagined it.

“Things aren’t always as they seem,” Thomas said, and his voice was solemn, all trace of humor gone.

The hair on my arms stood.

Jim painted an abstract in the condensed water on his glass. “I mean, it’s always some dude who is so fucked up in the head that no one else wants anything to do with him. Look at Dahmer. Same story, different guy.”

Noelle elbowed me lightly. “Hannah, you okay?”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I guess I…feel a little sorry for some of those guys. Not the murdering part, but the part where they’re so desperate that they think their only option is to kill someone.”

There was a pregnant pause. Did I just say I feel sorry for murderers? If only I were a magician so I could disappear. Behind us, the black lights flickered off, and neon strobes swept over the room like searchlights seeking to highlight my stupidity.

“Hey, how about another round of drinks?” Thomas asked, summoning the waitress with his trademarked goofy wave. Noelle giggled and nodded her agreement.

Thomas was my new personal hero. I’ll call him Captain Awkward, and he can come to my rescue in ridiculous social situations. It was an ingenious plan. So why was my skin still crawling?

I twisted toward Noelle, but she was whispering in Thomas’s ear. In my peripheral, I saw Jim, openly staring at me, his eyes alert and sharp and…famished. My heart backflipped. No. Don’t panic. Not now.

Too late. I couldn’t breathe. I grabbed my cranberry juice to loosen my vocal cords, and the cup slipped, splattering juice down the front of my shirt.

“Shit.”

Well, at least you can still talk. “I’ll be right back,” I croaked like someone who had just turned from a princess to a frog but without any of the royal pizzazz. I squeezed through happy women, angry women, and dancing couples to where a hand-painted wooden sign decreed Ladies above a little stick figure of a person in a dress. I was wearing jeans. I considered using the men’s bathroom to make a point but jerked open the door to the ladies’ room.

The bathroom was crowded but only for the stalls. In an alcove off to the side, I found a place at the sink and scrubbed at the stain with a wad of wet paper towels. The stain spread. I scrubbed harder, trying to avoid the buttons, so I didn’t tear them off. Other women walked by to the other sink, but none acknowledged me. I kept my eyes on the bleeding stain.

Why couldn’t you just have